Ryan Gosling Isn’t Just Ken

These days, when Hollywood needs an A-lister to play a stuntman, it’s never a bad idea to follow a simple rule: Get the Gosling.

The trend began in 2011 with the neo-noir thriller Drive, in which Ryan Gosling played a man known simply as the Driver: a stuntman by day and getaway driver by night. Armed with a scorpion bomber jacket that is both impossibly cool and nigh impossible to pull off, a brooding Gosling followed the film’s lead by letting the action do most of the talking. Then, in 2013’s The Place Beyond the Pines, Gosling starred as Luke, a drifter who makes a living doing motorcycle stunts for a traveling carnival before learning he has a son with his former lover. Once again, Gosling inhabits a laconic loner who yearns for more in his life, even if he doesn’t always have the words to express it. (There’s also plenty of real-life significance tied to the movie: It’s where Gosling met his partner, Eva Mendes.)

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While it’s been over a decade since Gosling last portrayed a stunt performer, he’s back in the saddle this weekend with The Fall Guy, the action comedy hailing from stuntman-turned-director David Leitch. With several large-scale action sequences anchored by practical effects, including one scene that broke a Guinness World Record for the most cannon rolls performed in a car, The Fall Guy is a love letter to one of Hollywood’s most underappreciated art forms. (Somehow, it’s still deprived of its own Oscars category.) As for Gosling, who plays aging stuntman Colt Seavers (side note: incredible name) as he chases down the missing star of a major studio movie, The Fall Guy is a noticeable departure from his previous roles within this niche profession. Colt is a charming daredevil, the kind of dude who flashes a smile and a thumbs-up before hurling himself in the direction of a helicopter. On the basis of one-liners alone, Colt has more to say than Drive’s Driver.

That these stuntmen fall on opposite ends of the spectrum is also reflective of Gosling’s journey as an actor. After a circuitous route to stardom, Gosling has blossomed into one of Hollywood’s most intriguing leading men—someone who’s just as comfortable playing the life of the party as he is inhabiting the quiet weirdo lurking in the corner. And much like his intrepid hero in The Fall Guy, all signs indicate that Gosling is taking his career to thrilling new heights.

For some viewers, their first exposure to Gosling was the ’90s revival of Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club, a variety series in which the young actor shared the stage with the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake. Gosling followed his stint with the Mouse House by landing the title role on the Fox Kids series Young Hercules, which was canceled after its lone, 50-episode (!) season. At this point, Gosling was ready to become a legitimate dramatic actor, but he didn’t find the transition easy. “It’s very hard coming from kids’ television to break the stigma,” Gosling told The New York Times in 2011, explaining how his agents dropped him for wanting to pursue more serious film roles. “All you have is a VHS tape of you humping stuff on The Mickey Mouse Club and wearing fake tanner and fighting imaginary sphinxes.”

Of course, Gosling’s big-screen breakout did arrive with 2004’s The Notebook, which supplanted Titanic as the movie that touched the hearts of hopeless romantics around the world. (Gosling and costar Rachel McAdams’s acceptance of the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss, in which they re-created their characters’ magical smooch, was the best kind of pandering.) You can envision a scenario in which Gosling capitalized on his heartthrob status in the immediate aftermath—leaning into all those “Hey Girl” memes—but instead, the actor seemed to actively distance himself from it. How else can one explain Lars and the Real Girl, the quirky dramedy where Gosling plays a socially awkward dude who develops a romantic relationship with a sex doll? (It’s more heartwarming than it sounds, though it’s certainly not what you expect from the star of The Notebook.)

But the road that’s led Gosling to his current standing as an A-lister was first paved by two disparate roles in 2011: the aforementioned Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love. Whereas Drive saw Gosling embody a taciturn antihero, Crazy, Stupid, Love required the actor to play a quick-witted womanizer falling in love for the first time. Setting aside the undeniably electric chemistry between Gosling and costar Emma Stone—something they would rekindle in Gangster Squad and, most famously, La La Land—it’s Gosling’s comedic chops that feel like the movie’s biggest revelation. The chaotic third-act reveal that brings the ensemble together is as hilarious as you remember.

Just as crucially, these movies were critical and commercial hits, proving that beyond The Notebook, Gosling could be a box office draw. And as a performer, Gosling showed he was capable of navigating two extremes: emotionally wounded lone wolves who use their words sparingly and protagonists in knockabout comedies who never take themselves too seriously. Gosling got plenty more reps with the former, though it wasn’t always smooth sailing: The actor reunited with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn for 2013’s Only God Forgives, which is best remembered for being booed at Cannes. (Fellow Refn-heads, however, will agree that Only God Forgives kicks plenty of ass when appreciated on its own, self-indulgent terms.) But it’s also within this space that Gosling has delivered some of his most resonant work in big-budget cinema.

Playing the protagonist in the legacy sequel to a sci-fi classic would be a tall order for anyone, but Gosling was more than up to the task in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. As the replicant known as K, who hunts down his own kind, Gosling infuses the character with a similar ambiguity to Harrison Ford’s protagonist in the original Blade Runner—only this time, it’s not a question of whether or not K is human, but how much he’ll divert from his programming. It’s a performance that fits right into Gosling’s wheelhouse—the glimpses of real emotion simmering underneath the surface carry so much weight—and makes him a worthy on-screen partner to Ford, who has long made a living out of inhabiting gruff heroes. (It was also apparent from the Blade Runner 2049 press tour that Gosling and Ford share the same dry sense of humor.)

Gosling’s greatest performance to date channeled the same frequency, with one crucial difference: It was in service of playing a historical figure. In Damien Chazelle’s First Man, we follow Neil Armstrong (Gosling) from his early days as a NASA test pilot to becoming the first person to step foot on the moon. The film’s depiction of the moon landing is a stunning achievement in its own right, but what makes First Man one of the best blockbusters of the past decade is how it digs into the psychology of someone willing to put their life on the line. For Armstrong, who lost his young daughter to a brain tumor, the risk of perishing in space is better than staying at home to talk about your feelings, making him the perfect (and somewhat literal) embodiment of the Silent Generation. Again, Gosling is at his best when those emotions slip through the cracks—most powerfully when Armstrong drops his daughter’s bracelet into the Little West crater after taking one giant leap for mankind. Even if Gosling’s work in First Man didn’t get the attention of Oscar voters, make no mistake: He’s got the right stuff.

But even as Gosling continues to excel at portraying emotionally inhibited men (or androids), audiences have enthusiastically responded to the actor’s embrace of his funnier side. Shane Black’s 2016 comedy The Nice Guys didn’t light up the box office, but it’s endured as the rare non-franchise film that has folks clamoring for a sequel. It’s easy to see why. Following dopey private investigator Holland March (Gosling) as he teams up with low-level enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to investigate a porn star’s disappearance in ’70s Los Angeles, The Nice Guys doesn’t just feel like a throwback to the buddy-cop movies of yesteryear: It can hold its own against any of them. A big part of that comes down to the dynamic between Gosling and Crowe, who make for entertaining foils, especially when Healy is tossing March around like a rag doll. (Sadly, Gosling has recently squashed hopes for a sequel.)

But while The Nice Guys has more than earned its reputation as a cult favorite, its cultural impact is a drop in the bucket compared to Barbie’s. Alongside Oppenheimer, Barbie was the moviegoing event of 2023: a delectable, witty, and occasionally profound dramedy that touched on everything from feminism to existentialism to the patriarchy. And yet, it’s hard to deny that the film’s MVP was the himbo living in Barbie’s shadow. As the Ken whose occupation is, simply, “beach,” Gosling is a scene-stealing delight, fawning over Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) before his unrequited love devolves into a ridiculous caricature of toxic masculinity. (Shout-out to the Mojo Dojo Casa House.) Gosling’s unbridled Kenergy was so infectious that he didn’t just earn an Oscar nomination: He blew the roof off the ceremony performing “I’m Just Ken.”

When an actor is having this much fun, who can blame audiences for wanting more of the same? Thankfully, The Fall Guy lets Gosling not only continue to flex his comedy chops amid explosive action sequences, but also play a genuinely charming romantic lead opposite Emily Blunt. (This is the Barbenheimer crossover nobody saw coming.) At this point in his career, it’s clear that Gosling has a lot of pitches in his acting repertoire, whether he’s pulling off slapstick comedy, brooding over inner turmoil, or ranting about the incomparable power of jazz. If moviegoers would rather see Gosling channel some of that Kenergy for the foreseeable future, so be it—just so long as we remember that he’s always been more than just Ken.